


hold your bones together

by intertwingular



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, No Smut, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn, Unreliable Narrator, it's very small - no need to worry, lmao does this count as canon divergence, lmao why am i surprised, mari is a badass, seriously i will imply what i will but im not writing them doing the vertical tango, this got surprisingly dark???, triggers tagged at the beginning of each chapter, yuri plisetsky needs to watch his damn mouth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 06:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10406358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intertwingular/pseuds/intertwingular
Summary: an assassin, his target, (thepakhanof a bratva) and the race to see who gets two who first. (and, if they happen to fall in love somewhere along the way, well. more's the pity for the kind of fool who lets his own enemy in with a knife.)alternatively; katsuki yuuri is drowning in more ways than one. what's one more body to throw into the ocean? (even if it is his childhood idol. all idols are, after all, meant to die sooner or later. such is fate.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> yeS!!! i know i have another fic going on right now!!!!!!!! leave me a lone im a disaster. but, people who have read pas de deux (my other fic) know that i was talking about a mafia au, b/c it won the poll. hA this is literally 4k of angst. and panic attacks. 
> 
> chapter warnings: panic attacks, implied/referenced past rape/non-con (depends on how you'll choose to interpret it), casual talk of murder 
> 
> chapter title is from twenty one pilot's "kitchen sink" 
> 
> enjoy!

_**oft, we find; people are not comfortable in silence.** _

As a child, Katsuki Yuuri is intimately intertwined with silence. It weaves itself into his breath, his bones, and his blood. He grows up with silence, and learns to keep it close to him, to creep silently across creaky floorboards, to never disturb Father and Mother while guests are over. But he isn’t heir - not to the _onsen_ , nor the _yakuza_. Silence was not entirely necessary for him, but he had steeped within it for so long, that now, Yuuri didn't know how to let it go. 

But with the ice, there was noise. The ice was not silent - it couldn't be. It shifted and crackled every time the blades of his skates hit the ice, and it hummed with ambient energy, constantly urging Yuuri to go _faster, faster, just one more rotation, one more lutz._ The people that populated the ice were noisy too, practically filled to burst with the sheer exuberance and life they brought with them. But, despite everything, Yuuri knew he was comfortable in silence, and he couldn't fathom wanting to let it go. 

Yuuko would not stand for it. She dragged him out into the noise, gripped him by hands, flung him out into it, and held him there until he could stand on his own. 

Had it been too much to hope to climb higher, out from the silence, and into the noise? Or had he simply been another Icarus, flying blindly and arrogantly into the sun, ignorant of the wax melting from his wings?

Amidst the turmoil, Katsuki Yuuri slips back into his silence. The noise was for those who could shine brighter than a dull, tired gray. 

_“Maybe it wasn't meant to be, Yuuri.”_

_“...mm. Guess so.”_

* * *

**January 12th, 2016. Hasetsu, Japan.**

Strangely enough, there is no snow in January. For all that December had been positively rife with snowstorms - once, the snow was high enough, that Yuuko’s triplets couldn't step outside without being covered in snow up to their chins - the new year seems to have swept it all away with a sudden burst of warmth. 

Yuuri sweeps at non existent dust outside of the _onsen._ The air is brisk, wind blowing through the thin shirt he has on. (not that the sweat that has dried along the collar helps much either - though it’s long since dry, it adds a layer of chill to the thin shirt that only serves to make the wind worse.) Leaning on the broom, he stares off into the distance. 

There’s nothing to _do._

After placing abysmally - _sixth. last place._ \- at the Grand Prix Finals, Yuuri had taken up his parents offer and moved back home after finishing his final term in college. 

“What are you going to do with an organic biology major anyways?” Mari had asked over the phone. Her voice was even huskier than the last time they’d talked - a good few months ago - and so Yuuri had told her that, if nothing else, it meant that there was someone close by who knew what was going on when she inevitably lost her voice from all the tar in her lungs. 

Mari had laughed, then immediately sworn retribution the moment he set foot back onto the _onsen_ grounds. 

“Bored yet?” 

“Mari.” Yuuri takes a breath, and turns around, to find his sister leaning against the doorframe of the onsen, a cigarette dangling loosely from between two fingers. She’s still the spitting image of the unconventional _yakuza_ princess, from the way her hair is shaved in a neat undercut in the back, to the curling tattoo sleeve up her left arm. (yuuri knows, how that last, fragile branch of the willow tree curls to a neat finish just above mari’s heart, if only because he’s stripped her down in the hot spring, years before, closing out his final year of high school with a bang - literally - holding the torn bottom of his shirt to a bullet wound on her stomach.) She grins lopsidedly at him, and blows a cloud of noxious smoke towards him in a facsimile of a kiss. 

“Little brother,” Mari drawls, flicking ash off the butt of her cigarette. Her voice is rougher in person, like someone bottled ashes from summertime bonfires, then threw in a dash of honey and a sprig of lavender to smooth the concoction out. She stashes the cigarette in the pocket of her large overcoat, and Yuuri eyes the way it bulges ever-so-slightly around the other god knows how many stubbed out cigarettes are stashed in there. “Miss me?” 

Yuuri laughs, and sets the broom aside, propping it up against the side of the _onsen._ He lets Mari fold him into a smoke-scented hug, and he lets himself rest his head in the sturdy curve where her neck joins with her shoulders. Her pulse is strong and steady, a languid rhythm to counter the unsteady, erratic one that Yuuri’s heart beats. He’ll never let her know that she’s shocked him, but a small part of him thinks that she already knows. 

He pulls away, and runs a gaze up and down her. The overcoat is the same one from five years ago, large and black, rippling behind her like a cape, and it means that until now, Mari was out on the field. Shooting people point blank, with the recklessness that comes as easily to her as reaching for a cigarette and lighter, and exchanging tongues with men and women more than twice her age. She’s Father’s pride and joy, no matter how exasperated he is with her inability to act like the prim and proper kind of _yakuza_ princess that most families are known to raise. 

Father has Yuuri to play the part of the gentle _yakuza_ prince, and he knows that Father despairs over how _fragile_ Yuuri can be. He knows that Father means well to worry, because Yuuri is more Mother’s son than he is Father’s (he’ll leave that to mari) and that means that Yuuri is vulnerable, just as Mother can be. 

It’s a bit of a culture shock to return home, Yuuri thinks, grip tight around Mari’s bicep. He knows she only tolerates this because he worries - such is his nature - and the worries are so much worse after being on foreign territory for five years. ( _americans,_ he remembers telling mari. _they’re all mannerless savages, can you believe it? shoot outs in broad daylight, minor gangs running amuck. what a mess._ ) 

“I should be asking you that,” Yuuri quips, weakly. “I’m the one who’s been gone for five years, after all.” He lets Mari go, and reaches back to reclaim the broom. “How was the mission?” 

Yuuri isn’t Father’s best sniper due to silly things like _favoritism,_ or an unusual amount of ballet training. He’s an observer, like Mother. His eyes have rarely missed anything since Minako began training him. So really, he’s a bit offended when Mari’s eyebrow goes up a fraction at the question, before being quickly tamped down into a bland devil-may-care expression. 

“Bloody,” Mari sighs, lighting a new cigarette. She takes a long drag, and exhales the smoke into the cloudless sky. “You were right, by the way. Damn Americans thought that they could actually _steal_ our cargo. And they were honestly just _children,_ trying to make it big, can you believe it?” She shakes her head. “Fools like them always end up six feet under.” 

Yuuri closes his eyes for a moment. They’ve both had their fair share of kills, but for Mari to call these ones children means that they’re _young._ No older than fourteen. “Sometimes there are mistakes that you don’t recover from,” he offers. It’s no consolation. 

“Ugh,” Mari groans, sticking her cigarette between her teeth. “You’re such a _nerd._ Come in for dinner.” With another smokey breath, she shoves Yuuri forwards a little, grinning as he narrowly avoids tripping. “Mom doesn’t want to wait for too long.” She pauses, and smiles grimly at Yuuri. “Father has a mission for you.” 

Mari ruffles his hair, her grin feline and sharp, and tramps back into the house, cigarette stubbed out, so as not to incite their mother’s (rare) wrath. “Don’t take too long, alright?” 

Yuuri props the broom up again, after Mari has closed the door behind her, and sits down on the stoop. He doesn’t want to think about the job that had happened the night before. ( _hands on his hips, gripping tight enough to bruise, teeth over his pulse point, biting hard enough to set his pulse pounding and blood beading on his skin. eyes dark with lust, malice, and something else that he can’t quite place, and the hotel room, large and empty, with no one nearby to hear him scream - nor the sound of a gun firing without a silencer._ ) He doesn’t. 

Yuuri tucks his head between his knees, fists his hair tight enough to rip tufts of it out if he just pulled, and tries to remember how to breathe. _One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten. Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten. Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten._

Onetwothreefourfivesixseven _eightnine_ **ten.** (help doesn’t come.)

* * *

Father is the same as Yuuri remembers. A gentle looking man, with a horn-rimmed glasses, a perpetual smile, and the smile lines to go with it. His bowtie is burgundy today, tied neatly underneath the starched collar of his button-down shirt, likely Mother’s work, as always. They’re seated in the Chrysanthemum Room, the banquet room saved for important _guests,_ and nothing has changed here either. The hanging wall scroll is the same, gentle pink ume blossoms hanging over yellow chrysanthemums, and painted greenery. The long table is still dark mahogany, legs and sides carved with a delicate precision. If Yuuri were to run his fingers along the right leg closest to the exit, he would feel the notches in the leg that he and Mari had carved in with her first army knife. (they’d gotten in _so much_ trouble.) 

He does none of these things, and instead, closes the sliding door behind him, and pads over to the opposite side of the long table. Yuuri folds his legs underneath himself, grateful for the cushion underneath his knees, protecting them from the unforgiving _tatami_ mats. 

“Welcome home, Yuuri,” Father starts, and he stands, unsteady without the aid of his cane. Yuuri rushes to meet him halfway, and Father smiles, gripping Yuuri’s forearm. Yuuri guides them both down onto the floor, and Father fondly smoothes a stray strand of hair away from Yuuri’s eyes. “We missed you. Just calling isn’t the same as talking face to face, I’m afraid,” he confesses, squeezing Yuuri’s hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here the day you got home.” 

Yuuri smiles, and squeezes Father’s hand in turn. “Business is busy, I know. Did it all go well?” For a moment, it’s almost like high school again, Yuuri’s childhood of rushing into Father’s office after hearing the sound of his suitcases click and roll across the wooden floors of the family portion of the _onsen._

As if to drive home the memories even more, Father smiles, and reaches behind him, and places a small wrapped box in Yuuri’s lap. “A token from Paris,” he simply says, patting Yuuri’s knee. “You performed well this Grand Prix, Yuuri. Mom and I are so proud of you.” 

Yuuri’s hands shake as he unties the thin, metallic ribbon from around the box. He’s not certain if Father is talking about his performance on the ice, or the one off the ice. Yuuri doesn’t ask, and chooses to carefully slit the Tiffany blue wrapping paper with his thumbnail. 

Nestled in a small padding of crushed velvet, is a silver key. It’s _gorgeous,_ for lack of a better word. Strung up tidily on a silver chain, it hangs, dainty and small. It’s nothing ostentatious, just as Yuuri likes it - the only truly eye catching thing about the key is the numbering. Around the center are four roman numerals, cast in silver, just like the small key. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, running a thumb over the key. It’s smooth and cool to the touch, and Yuuri can tell that Father chose it for the fact that it would be something that Yuuri can easily fidget with when nervous. 

Father smiles again, eyes crinkling, and shuffles behind Yuuri to clasp it on him. “There we go,” he says, leaning back. “Now. Back to business.” 

Yuuri runs his thumb over the pendant, and nods. “The assignment?” 

Father stands up, and hobbles his way over to the head of the table. Yuuri goes back to his seat, and folds his legs underneath himself, schooling his expression into something less vulnerable. There is no room for weakness here, not even with his own Father. The time for that has passed. 

“A file has been complied by our informants, but I encourage you to seek other sources as well for this case.” Father slides a thick, manilla file across the table. “Your assignment.” 

Yuuri opens the file, apprehension filling his gut, and shaking his hands. The headshot, clipped to an in-depth profile. Papers detailing other information needed to assess the target and stake out a good spot. The file is standard, if not a little thicker than what Yuuri is used to, but it’s nothing he can’t work with. 

_Viktor Nikiforov,_ the file reads, and Yuuri can feel his heart rise into his throat. _It can’t be,_ he wants to croak. _He’s a figure skater - Dad, tell me that this isn’t true. Dad, he didn’t even know my_ name. _Dad, this isn’t a funny joke, but please, let it be one._

 _Viktor Nikiforov,_ the file reads. _Pakhan of the Solntsevskaya Bratva._

“I am sorry to assign you something new so soon, Yuuri,” Father murmurs, eyes tired. “Come to dinner once you are ready, alright?” And he hobbles from the room, cane tapping a rhythm against the wood floors as he walks. 

_Viktor Nikiforov,_ the file reads. _Pakhan of the Solntsevskaya Bratva. Unless able to be otherwise convinced to reconsider cooperation with the Sun Yee On, orders are to kill._

Yuuri doesn’t want to read anymore. Closing the file, he slides it away, and falls backwards onto the _tatami_ mats. Blinking once, twice, Yuuri throws his arm over his eyes, and tries to quell the pounding in his head. 

One two three four five six seven eight nine _ten._ (whoever said counting helped is a _liar._ ) Yuuri whispers the numbers into the emptiness of the Chrysanthemum Room, and tries to remember how to breathe again.

* * *

Yuuri pieces himself back together slowly, and heads down to dinner an hour later. Mari and Father are long since gone, and the dining area of the onsen is sparsely populated with men and women in _yukata,_ watching a sports program on the TV. 

Mother is nowhere to be seen. 

Quietly greeting the men and women as he steps around them, Yuuri makes his way over to the kitchen. “Mom?” He calls, pushing the door open.

“Yuuri!” Mother pops her head around the door of a pantry. She’s gentle-looking, just like Father - and Yuuri supposes that’s half the reason any associate finds it hard to believe that their entire family runs a _yakuza_ \- and with a bit of shock, Yuuri realizes that he’s a head taller than her now. “Come and sit down - I thought you wouldn’t make it to dinner tonight.” It’s a soft dig, and Yuuri smiles weakly, pulling a stool out from underneath the kitchen island. 

“I just needed some time to think,” he confesses. “It’s so odd, being home after spending so much time in America.” 

“Well, if you want to talk, I’m here.” Smoothing down the back of Yuuri’s hair, Mother pops a bowl into the microwave. She smiles at him, and it looks tired. The ongoing war with the Sun Yee On is taking their toll on everyone, even someone who should be far removed from that. 

Because it’s _easy_ to forget that despite her gentle demeanor, Mother was as formidable as Mari on the field once. But she’s long since retired, exchanged her tonfa and gun for two children and an _onsen._

“Do you like the pendant?” Mother asks, turning around from her prep work. A cucumber is half cut on the cutting board, and several bell peppers are waiting beside it. “Your father called me at two am, asking if it was your style.” She sighs, and smiles. “We’re glad to have you home, Yuuri.” 

“I’m glad to be back.” And it’s not a lie, not like Mari asking him if he’s really _alright_ after the last op, because he only reported that the infiltration was successful, and that the target was dead. None of the fluff in between, nothing about how he’d gotten to the target. His family doesn’t need to know about _that_ failure, not on top of the one during the GPF. 

“Come help me cut these vegetables while you wait for the microwave to finish.” Mother gestures with her knife at the bell peppers. “Did you cook in America?” 

Yuuri takes a knife from the block, and moves to rinse the bell peppers in the sink. “Yeah. My roommate couldn’t cook, so I would, and he’d do the laundry.” 

Laughing, Mother teases him about his rampant dislike for any kind of laundry. “You’ll have to face it one day, you know.” 

Yuuri smiles weakly, and cuts into the first pepper. “Yeah, but not today.” His hands are shaking around the handle of the blade. Breathing in through the nose, he steadies his hand, and continues to cut the pepper into strips. “I can avoid laundry for another week.” 

Mother swats him lightly with a towel, and Yuuri laughs, batting it away. “Finish cutting those peppers so you can eat, Yuuri. You’re far too thin - they don’t feed you properly in America.” 

Yuuri rubs his stomach, and goes back to cutting the bell peppers.

* * *

Lying awake in the dead of the night, Yuuri stares up at the ceiling of his childhood bedroom, and tries to ignore the accusing stare of the posters of Viktor Nikiforov on his walls. _You have to kill me,_ they accuse. _You’re going to kill_ me. 

Worse still, _you’re not going to care when you kill me._

“Shut up,” Yuuri mutters. “Shut _up,_ I will.” He always cares. The families will mourn the death of the target, and Yuuri will mourn alongside them. Quietly, under his breath, Yuuri begins to rattle off names. 

The list goes on for ages. There are so many corpses there when he closes his eyes, from the youngest (juuri, 13. princess to the obata _yakuza._ her father was a traitor.) to the eldest. (renato, 70. ninth _don_ of the esposito _famiglia._ an old, corrupt man. yuuri was glad to see him go.) 

It’s _too much._ With a half-strangled screech, Yuuri springs up from his bed, hair wild, and eyes even more so. He tears into the posters on his walls, bringing them down in shreds and ribbons, tatters of glossed paper, fluttering to the floor. He has to get _away_ from this stare. It’s intrusive and accusing, and Yuuri _cannot take this._

_Viktor Nikiforov,_ he remembers, curled into himself on the floor. _Pakhan of the Solntsevskaya Bratva. 27 years old, no living relatives. Succeeded his father, Nikolai Nikiforov upon death, at 20. Mother, Ekaterina Nikiforov nee Mikhailov, died of cancer in 2001. Unless able to otherwise be convinced to reconsider cooperation with the Sun Yee On, orders are to kill._

Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnine _ **ten.**_

Yuuri takes a breath and stands up. Rubbing his hands down his face, he brushes hair out from his face, and strips out from his sweatpants, and into a pair of leggings. Throws on a thermal over his scarred stomach, and reaches for the Japan National Team track jacket thrown over his desk chair. Digging a thumb into his thighs, he chases away the pins and needles tingling up and down his leg. 

Stretching, Yuuri slides his phone into the pocket of his track jacket, and, quiet as a wraith, slips out from the _onsen._ The air is colder now, than it was before, and snow has begun to fall over Hasetsu, in a small, light dusting of powder. Jingling the key ring in his pocket, Yuuri treks quietly over the bridge, and past the ugly statue in the trainyard. In front of him, the ninja castle looms, illuminated, despite the glaring lack of tourists at two am, and in front of it, the Ice Castle. 

His breath clouds in front of him, puffs of cloud-like white steam, and Yuuri runs up the stairs, careful not to slip as he goes. Yuuko can’t take his mind off of this issue - despite her being his handler for god knows how many years now - because she’s got her three girls at home, and Nishigori too. It’s two am, for god’s sake, and Yuuri isn’t going to deprive her of what little sleep she already gets. 

So he unlocks the doors to the Ice Palace, careful to lock them behind him, because he might have knives stashed in his sports bag, but he’s not going to be prepared for an assailant while on the ice. (god forbid that it’s a _gunman,_ against his small knives.) 

He sheds his track jacket, and laces up his skates, placing the blade guards on the railing of the rink. It’s freezing in the rink, and it smells cold too, somehow. It’s comforting, and Yuuri skates out into the center of the ice, forming loose and lazy figure eights as he goes. There’s a silent sort of music that thrums through him when he’s on the ice, and Yuuri dips into it, freestyling step sequences to an unplayed tune. 

Yuuri lets himself forget the new assignment, lets himself forget the contents of that damn file, ( _viktor nikiforov, pakhan of the solnyseveskaya bratva. 27 years old, no living relatives. succeeded his father, nikolai nikiforov upon death, at age 20. mother, ekaterina nikiforov nee mikhailov, died of cancer in 2001. unless able to be otherwise convinced to reconsider cooperation with the sun yee on, orders are to kill._ ) and bares himself wholly on the ice, scars, glass heart, and all. 

At the end of the day, his purpose ends and begins with the weight of a gun or a knife in his hands, and the scarlet red of blood, drip dripping through his fingers, pooling on the floor underneath a cooling body. But Yuuri arches his back into an Ina Bauer, and transitions into a sit spin, and for a moment, the ice is enough.

**Author's Note:**

>  **glossary**  
>  _pakhan_ : the head of a russian bratva. translates to something along the lines of "father."  
>  _sun yee on_ : the most powerful of the chinese triads.  
>  _bratva_ : the russian mafia  
>  _ina bauer_ an element in figure skating in which a skater skates on two parallel blades  
>  _sit spin_ : one of the three basic figure skating spin positions. it is defined by a squatting position in which the skater's buttocks are below the knee of the skating leg
> 
> (links will be posted to altered character designs once they're done) 
> 
> so??? thoughts?? lmk of any criticism, or any characters you felt were ooc. kudos is also very much appreciated.


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